There is ever increasing pressure on water companies to improve the quality of the water they supply and indeed any effluent they discharge. Whilst there are many sophisticated monitoring systems for detecting a whole range of pollutants, many of these do not work in real time and so significant discharges can occur from treatment plants before the problem is discovered.
Very often a breakdown in the efficiency of the treatment plant filtration system is indicated by an increase in solids in the water, but to date there is no method of monitoring such contaminants unless their presence is in sufficient concentration to effect a change in turbidity and is thus detectable using a currently available instrument.